It is the negative pole of the great moral battery; and without it the battery could not be run. And without it there could be no morality, no moral principle or accountability, while man exists upon the present animal plane. In fact, morality without evil would be an unmeaning word. Evil is a state of imperfection running through every vein of nature, from the igneous rock to the brain of man. Some writers attempt to discriminate between natural and moral evil; but there is no dividing line. Moral evil is as natural as any phenomenon in nature, and is, strictly speaking, the phenomenal action of the brain. Moral evil is governed as rigidly by natural laws as physical evil; because (as science demonstrates) it has its basis in man's moral nature. And, practically speaking, there will be neither natural nor moral evil when nature (now in a crude state) grows to a state of maturity. Evil or imperfection, which now characterizes every thing, diminishes in its ratio to goodness or perfection as we ascend from inanimate matter to man,—the crowning work of nature. The theological world assumes that man alone bears the impress of imperfection, and that his imperfection is restricted principally to his moral action. "Man alone is imperfect: all else bears the mark of divine perfection." So says Archbishop Whately. But the converse assumption is nearer true: Man is the crowning work of nature, and his moral attributes constitute the keystone of the arch. He is occasionally erratic, and often wicked, but not universally and continually so, like some of the lower animal tribes. The hyena will murder at all times when opportunity offers; but man only occasionally, and when driven to it by the pressure of circumstances. All monkeys are thieves; but only a small portion of the genus homo are such. Man derives all his propensity to evil and wickedness from the lower animals. His propensity to rob is exhibited in the eagle; his inclination to steal, in the monkey; his disposition to murder, in the hyena, alligator, rattlesnake, &c.; his disposition to enslave, in the red ant, which makes a slave of the black ant, as has often been observed by naturalists. Such was the wickedness among the lower animals in their earlier stage of development, that, by theft, robbery, and murder, they effected the entire extinction of many species of animals. And if we descend still lower, and learn the practical history of the mineral kingdom, we shall find that its operations are marked by a a still more ruinous and destructive form of evil. The hideous and devouring earthquake; the heaving and overflowing volcano, burying whole cities beneath its deep and merciless waves of running fire; the roaring and furious tornado, destroying hundreds of dwellings, and dooming the inmates to a terrible death; and the swift-sped lightning, which, with no note of warning, strikes down hundreds of people every year,—all these violent operations of nature are the manifestation of evil, and a proof that imperfection exists everywhere. And man is the last and least manifestation of this multifarious destructive outburst of nature; and he will never outgrow it, and escape its operation entirely, till all nature arrives at manhood. While nature is imperfect, man will be imperfect; for he is a child of nature, and all things move forward in correlated order. He can, however (and it is a necessity of his nature that he should), battle with opposing forces, and modify the circumstances around him. His nature impels him to this as naturally as it urges him to eat food when hungry; but, as at present constituted and situated, it will be the work of time to rid the earth of moral evil. The only way to accomplish the extinction of evil is to labor for the elevation of the whole race. We are only rowing against the current in attempting to put down evil with our present system of moral ethics, which treats the criminal as a wicked being instead of an unfortunate, sin-sick brother. He should be sent to a moral hospital instead of to the gallows, the jail, and the dungeon. He should be treated as an unfortunate brother, rather than as a being to be spurned from society as a viper. He should be treated kindly, not cruelly; fed, and not starved. His moral nature should be warmed by affection, and not congealed by frowns. His instinctive respect for virtue should be developed by a sound moral education, and not crushed by pursuing him with a malignant spirit. Moral evils must be treated as the fruits of the imperfections of our nature, and not as the product of sin-punishing devils, who first originate and stimulate crimes, and then join with Cod in punishing the criminal with fiendish cruelty; thus applying a remedy which is a thousand times worse than the disease.
The science of phrenology explains most beautifully the cause and nature of sin or crime, and demonstrates that it is simply the perverted or unbalanced action of the natural faculties of the mind. Combativeness when excessively developed or unduly excited, prompts to quarrels and fighting; destructiveness, under similar circumstances, leads to war and bloodshed; amativeness, when not properly restrained, leads to the various forms of licentiousness; over-active acquisitiveness is the main-spring in most cases of theft and robbery, and all crimes committed for the acquisition of property or money. And other crimes are prompted by the over-active condition of these and, other mental faculties unrestrained by the moral faculties, every act and every species of crime are in this way most satisfactorily accounted for by this now generally received and thoroughly established science of mental philosophy; so that "the mystery of godliness," comprehended in the word sin, which for ages perplexed the student of theology, is now unraveled and understood by the scientific men of the age, and known to have a natural basis and natural origin. And this all-important discovery has driven the old orthodox Devil from the arena of human action. He no longer walks "to and fro in the earth, seeking whom he may devour." He is dead—dead,—killed by the sledge-hammer of science. And yet the fifty thousand clergymen who still "defend the faith once delivered to the saints" are (many of them) so far behind the march of human progress that the news of the mortal exit of his Satanic Majesty seems not yet to have reached them; or, if it has, it is because they are unwilling to lose the services of a long-cherished and highly valued friend that they refuse to credit the report of his demise. Take away their Devil, and their whole theological scaffolding falls to the ground. Revivals could no more be carried on without his aid, than a watch could be kept running without a main-spring. And with the departure of the Devil must go "salvation by Christ," as there is then nothing, in a theological sense, to be saved from. It is an important fact, of which the clergy seem to be ignorant, that the march of science has exploded all their old theological dogmas. Phrenology has banished the Devil; physiology explains the modus operandi of repentance; psychology, the process of "getting religion;" philosophy analyzes their Bible miracles; geology has expanded their six days of creation into six thousand years; astronomy has displaced Moses' theory of creation, and demolished St. John's little eight-by-ten heaven. (See Rev. chap. 21.) And yet the orthodox clergy refuse to shorten their creeds by leaving out these old, exploded dogmas. Like moles, they continue rooting and digging away among their musty creeds, dogmas, and catechisms, seemingly unconscious that the sun of science is now shining with dazzling brilliancy in the moral heavens. Some of them manifest a tenacity in holding on to musty and antiquated dogmas equal to that of the butcher's dog in the army which seized a slaughtered ox by the caudal appendage, with the intention of monopolizing the meat, and held on with a "manly grip" till limb after limb had been torn off, and piece after piece had been cut away from the body by the hungry soldiers, and nothing was left but the tail and the backbone; and then his canine majesty growled at passers-by, as much as to say, "I am master of the situation." The fossilized clergy are "masters of the situation," while the old orthodox carcass is now minus every part but the tail and naked backbone, to which they cling with a deathly grasp worthy of a better cause. They remind us of the hotel-keeper in Vermont, who, in answer to the interrogatories of some travelers, stated that he did not keep any kind of food for either men or horses. "What in the name of God, then, do you keep?" inquired one of the hungry guests. He replied, "I keep Union Hotel." The stand-still clergy still keep the old theological hotel minus any spiritual food, or supplied only with old salt junk handed down from the camp of Moses or Father Abraham.
A word more with respect to the origin of evil: Is it not strange that Christians should deny their God to be the author of evil, when it is expressly so declared in their Bible? "I make peace, and I create evil. I Jehovah do all these things."
Here is the positive declaration that God is the author of evil; and, if it were not thus unequivocally taught, we could prove that the Bible teaches this doctrine indirectly by various texts If "God made every thing that was made," then he either made evil or the author of evil, whether that was a devil or a serpent or a fallen angel; and this is substantially the same thing as originating evil,—to originate the author of evil. We challenge refutation of the proposition. But a philosophical analysis of the question will show there is no such thing as evil in either the abstract or absolute sense. Good and evil are but relative terms, like heat and cold, light and darkness, &c. There is no distinct line of demarkation between any of these correlative terms. It is impossible to tell where one ends, and the other begins. And then there is no act but that may become either right or wrong under different circumstances. The Bible says, "Thou shalt not kill." But the man who should see an assassin pointing a pistol to the head of his wife, or a dagger to her breast, and refrain from killing him as the only means of saving her life, would be virtually himself a murderer. "Thou shalt not steal" (Exod. xx.); and yet stealing would become a moral right, as well as a physical necessity, to avoid starvation. And so of all other acts called crime and sin: they may become absolute virtues. How foolish, therefore, to erect inflexible standards for human action or conduct! And then it should be noted that what is regarded as sin in one age or country may be imposed as a moral or religious duty in another. It is a sin to disbelieve the Koran in Arabia, and a sin to believe it in America. It is a sinful act to disbelieve the Christian Bible in this country, and a moral and religious duty in Japan. It is blasphemy and atheism to disbelieve in Jehovah and Jesus Christ in this country, but a still greater blasphemy and sin to believe in them in Arabia. And thus all human actions are modified by the circumstances under which, and the locality in which, they are committed.
CHAPTER XLVI.—TRUE SALVATION, OK THE RATIONAL VIEW OF SIN.
We will now attempt to show what reason, science, and God's eternal Bible teach as the nature of sin and its consequences. The orthodox world represents sin to be a personal affront against a personal God. But we take a broader, and, we think, a more rational view of the matter. We believe that no act of ours, whether good or bad, can possibly affect an infinite, omnipresent, and impersonal Deity in any way whatever. Nothing we can do can either offend or gratify such a being. He is infinitely too far removed from our little narrow sphere of action. But every thing we do can and does affect ourselves, and generally our friends and all connected with us. Every wrong act we perform inflicts an injury upon our moral consciousness, and a wound upon our sense of right, and inflicts a lasting injury upon our moral dignity, if it does not create a painful sense of wrong. And, when once committed, no repentance, no forgiveness, no prayer, no atonement, no pardon, can do any thing toward arresting the baneful effects, or toward healing the wound it has inflicted upon our moral consciousness, or the injury it has inflicted upon others. Hence we never ask for forgiveness, nor rely upon any atonement by men, animals, or Gods to cancel the effects, or mitigate the wrong, or alleviate the injury in the case. When you put your finger into fire, and burn it, you violate one of God's laws written upon your own constitution,—the law of self-preservation; and it inflicts a wound which the longest and loudest prayer ever uttered can do nothing towards healing. The effect will remain until healed by the working of nature's inherent laws. A similar effect is produced by every wrong act you inflict upon yourself or your fellow-beings. It inflicts a wound which is beyond the reach of prayer, pardon, repentance, or forgiveness. It most work ita natural cure, as in the case of physical injury. All bodily suffering comes through the mind, and hence affects the mind as well as the body; and every moral wrong we commit inflicts punishment or suffering upon the moral feelings. Hence it will be seen that sin does not have to wait for God to point out the penalty or punishment, but contains its own punishment, which no power in heaven or earth can arrest, avert, or set aside. This is evidently the only true doctrine respecting the punishment for sin; and it is the only doctrine that can stop the commission of crime, and the only doctrine that can ever reform the world; for, while the people are taught that sin can be atoned for by any power in heaven or earth, they will the more easily yield to the temptations to commit sin. Their will feel that this doctrine is a kind of license for sin: at least it weakens the motive for abstaining from sin. For if a man may lead a life of crime, sin, wickedness, and debauchery, destitute of all moral principle, for ninety-nine years, as orthodoxy teaches, and then have the effect entirely canceled, and the sin entirely erased from his soul, by one short hour of prayer and repentance and forgiveness, and by acknowledging his faith in the atoning blood of Christ, and then stand before God without a moral blot upon his soul, all purified and ready to join the pure in heart—the white-robed angels who lived a life of self-denial and purity—in shouting glory to God, where is the motive for leading a virtuous life? It is entirely too weak to restrain from the commission of crime while the temptation is as strong as we usually find it in all countries, especially as there is apparently a large premium offered to sinners. Christ says, "There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repent-eth than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance" (Luke xv. 7). No wonder that sin abounds in all Christian countries; and it always will abound while people are taught such pernicious doctrines. Therefore we hold the doctrines of repentance, atonement, forgiveness, &c., to be all wrong. They are subversive of the first principles of moral justice, and pernicious in their effects upon society. Let the wrong-doer, instead of being taught these pernicious doctrines, be instructed in the true system of salvation, which will teach him there is no possibility of evading or escaping the punitive effects of wrong-doing; that every wrong act he commits will inevitably drive the iron into his soul,—the two-edged sword of moral conviction; and that the blood of no goats or no Gods can do any thing toward washing away the sin, or mitigating the punishment. And let him be rescued also from the pernicious error of the churches, that "sin is a sweet morsel to be rolled under the tongue," or that "there is a pleasure in the commission of sin." We hold no such views; we believe in no such doctrines. We do not believe there is any real pleasure in the commission of a moral wrong of any kind. We believe that only a life of virtue is productive of real happiness. Let the wrongdoer be taught this moral lesson; and let him be also taught that every humane and virtuous act of this life will expand his soul, and elevate him to a higher plane of happiness, and bring him one step nearer the door of the heavenly kingdom. Let the world of mankind all be taught these beautiful and soul-elevating doctrines, which many now know by experience to be golden truths; and we will soon witness a great moral revolution and renovation in society by the propagation of these doctrines. We shall soon see the proof that our system of faith, embracing these beautiful, philosophical, and elevating doctrines, is much better calculated to moralize and reform the world than the morally weak and unjust doctrines of repentance, atonement, and pardon now daily preached from the Christian pulpits. Many cases could be cited to show that they do have a pernicious influence. I will adduce one example: When that Christian emperor, Constantine, had murdered his wife, son, nephew, and several other relatives, he raised his hands toward heaven, and exclaimed, "The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin." Here is an example of the pernicious and demoralizing effect of the Christian doctrines of atonement and forgiveness. We repeat, then, that such doctrines are demoralizing, as they must operate to retard the progress of truth and true religion, and the moral reformation of the world. People should be taught that it is as impossible to escape the penalty for sin or wrong-doing as it is to escape the darts of death; and that any act of forgiveness or atonement by some other being is only calculated to aggravate the wrong, and augment the sin, and open the door for a future commission of the act. All should understand that there is no one to pardon sins, and no savior but themselves. "The new religion," as it is sometimes called,—though it is the oldest religion in the world, being founded in the moral and religious nature of man, and an outgrowth of his moral, religious, and spiritual elements,—this religion, which is the religion of all the truly enlightened and scientific minds of the age, teaches that every person must be his own savior; that every man and woman must work out their own salvation, not with fear and trembling', however, but with joy and rejoicing. Hence we ask no bleeding saviors, no atonements, no acquittals by pardon or forgiveness. We offer no such bribery for crime or sin,—no such allurements and inducements for leading a life of vice; for many can testify, from their own experience, that they were more easily tempted from the path of virtue when they believed in these old heathenish, morally deformed, and morally dwarfing doctrines. On the other hand, they have felt much more strongly wedded to a life of virtue, and more powerfully restrained from wrong-doing since they abandoned these pernicious doctrines, and embraced the healthful, beautiful, and elevating doctrines of the "Harmonial Philosophy." This system teaches we have to suffer the penalty in full for every wrong act we commit; that we can not escape in any case by either repentance, atonement, or pardon; that we can not swim off to heaven through the blood of a murdered or crucified God, and leave our sins behind unpunished, or pack them on the back of a savior as the Jews did theirs on the back of a goat. It teaches us that the penalty is as certain as the commission of the crime; because one is the cause, and the other the effect. Hence we could as easily replace a lost arm, torn off in the field of battle, by prayer, or stop the descending lightning from splintering yonder tree into a thousand fragments, as to avert or set aside the penalty for crime by "supplicating the throne of grace." We hold that every wrong act we commit, if it does not destroy our happiness at the time, and operate as a barbed arrow sticking in the soul, will at least weaken our capacity for happiness in the future, weaken our moral strength and resolution to abstain from crime, weaken our natural detestation of crime, and weaken our moral ability to resist the temptation to commit the same and other crimes in the future, and finally destroy our moral manhood and true dignity. Now, here is a series of powerful motives for eschewing evil, and leading a life of virtue, which will operate to arrest that river of crime and iniquity now flowing through all Christian countries as soon as the people are taught these rational and beautiful doctrines in lieu of those weak and foolish incentives to virtue which are taught them from the Christian pulpit. They possess a much greater moral force than the fear of angry Gods and horned Devils. Reader ponder these maxims. The True Theory of Reform.—It requires but a few words to show what kind of moral teaching is required to reform the world. As happiness is the predominant desire and inalienable right of every human being, all aim to pursue that course best calculated to attain it; but, as men are now organized and circumstanced, they often pursue a course of life which infringes upon and destroys the happiness of others: and some of them commit acts known as crimes, which are simply trespasses upon the rights, peace, and happiness of their neighbors. If, in thus pursuing happiness, they must destroy the happiness of others, then it follows that the happiness of others is incompatible with their own. If so, then God has made a serious blunder in making one man's happiness depend upon destroying the happiness of others; and, as their happiness would depend equally upon destroying his, the happiness of all would thus be destroyed. Hence the theory won't work. It follows, then, that men lead a life of crime calculated to destroy the happiness of others, because they are ignorant of the fact that they can pursue a course of life that will secure their own happiness without destroying that of others. All that is necessary to reform them, therefore, is to convince them of this fact. This is the true theory, and the whole theory, of reform. And when people become acquainted with the modern discovery in moral philosophy, which teaches us that we can not attain to complete happiness without consulting the happiness of others in every act which affects them, there will be a double motive for leading a virtuous and honorable life. Even Christian professors will profit by it when they find that the grasping avarice which prompts them to try to monopolize wealth, and thus withhold the means of comfort and happiness from their neighbors, is not the way to attain real happiness for themselves. When the glorious era arrives that men will daily look after the happiness of others as well as their own, then we shall have a true religion, and a true state of society, and a happy world.